


The Devil and The Angel

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angel Wings, Body Modification, Bonding, Character Death Fix, Dark Past, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Gift Exchange, Gift Giving, Hospitalization, Injury Recovery, Intimidation, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Past Abuse, Post-X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Mutilation, Slow Build, Social Issues, Surprises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Warren remembers a little skittish devil boy thrown into the cage with him and ruined his wings and who almost killed him back when they were fighting on opposites sides for Apokolyps. Now he's a young man named Kurt who fights with the X-Men and saves the world from people like him. Being near him is more painful than Warren would like to admit- Kurt had humiliated him, took away the only thing that made him useful and forced him to join Apokolys's team in repayment for his new wings. But being in the school built for people like him with the little blue boy defying all of Warren's expectations, he wasn't totally sure what to do with himself now. his hate had nowhere to go.God forbid he become friends with this boy. He can't possibly like the boy who ruined his life, could he?





	1. After it happened

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who has been in a hospital many times before, I can tell you that this description of a hospital room is very accurate. (I referenced my own room). I hope you enjoy it x

The last thing Warren remembered was being found under heavy pieces of rubble, grabbed and manhandled onto a stretcher and flown to the nearest hospital that had the appropriate equipment to deal with his many extensive injuries and who didn’t mind having a mutant in their trauma division who had metal wings sticking out of his god damn shoulder blades.

He woke up one day and a nurse took a tube out of his throat soon after, and as he stared up at the white panelled roof with the fluorescent lights, he wondered how the hell he got there, and how anyone knew to pluck him up from the rubble. Then he turned his head and saw Ororo sitting in the seat beside the bed, her long limbs tucked up to her chest, her eyes firmly fixed on the T.V as she watched the Simpsons. When he coughed, she jumped upright and reached for a plastic cup filled with water and pointed the straw at his lips without a word. Warren reluctantly drank from the swirly blue straw.

“Why are you here?” He rasped once she pulled the straw away from his lips. “You betrayed us when we needed you most. And now you’re here?”

Ororo leant back and crossed her arms against her chest. “That’s not a nice greeting for the woman who sent a search and medial team out to that hell site to save your ungrateful ass.”

“Whoever said I wanted to be saved?” Warren tried to growl but it came out more like a gasp.

Rolling her eyes, she placed the half-empty plastic cup back on the table. “We all wanted to be saved. If we didn’t want to be, none of us would have accepted his offer. Neither would you.”

Resigning because he knew she was right, Warren turned his half-hearted glare away from her and nestled deeper into the pillows. “Why did you come back for me? You left with Erik and his friends.”

“I did,” Ororo agreed with a nod of her head. “But on the way, I talked about you to the Professor and convinced him to go back for you. I think he’s going to let you join the school if you’d want to.”

“What the hell's he a professor of anyway?” Warren muttered under his breath and tried to adjust his wings to a more comfortable position. Seeing his struggle, Ororo sat forward and rearranged his pillows before helping him back down. “And as if anyone would want me to join the damn school.”

“The blue one you fought in the temple was very adamant about going to get you.” Ororo glared critically at her nails as she spoke. “And he was actually the one who put in the proposition about giving you a position among their ranks.”

Warren frowned. “The monkey?”

“No, you moron, the boy with the tail. Who teleports.”

Thinking back, Warren remembered the scared and desperate boy in the cage who was more interested in fleeing and avoiding Warren than attacking him. He had changed in the short time between escaping the cage and meeting again during the battle. He was still skittish and afraid and reluctant to fight, but despite Warren’s best efforts to subdue him, the boy still managed to not only avoid Warren’s grasp but escape with the rest of his team. “Why the hell would he want me to join? I tried to kill him. Quite a few times.”

Shrugging, Ororo shook her head. “He says he believes in second chances. He’s a nice kid, actually. His name is Kurt.” She added as an afterthought. “He’s still learning, but he’s one of their best. Rough upbringing, I think, he might have mentioned growing up in a circus but I might have gotten some details mixed up. There is… a lot of new people that I need to learn about.”

Sighing, Warren continued to stare at the ceiling and ignore Ororo who was definitely not staring at him out the corner of her eye. “And if I join the school? What then?”

“Well, I don’t feel so alone anymore.” Ororo dropped the act of being disinterested in the topic of conversation and leaned in close to Warren, her nails tapping lightly on the edge of the metal barricades. Warren hadn’t even noticed they were up until the sound reached his ears. “I have a home now, Warren. With running water and lights that I can turn on and off when I wish and so much food I don’t know what to do with. I feel safe for the first time in a long time. Even with him, I didn’t feel like this.” She ran a hand through her white hair absently, a nervous gesture that Warren had begun to associate with her, just like running his hand through his metal feathers that were no longer fluffy and soft to the touch. “There’s… finally a place for us. Somewhere that people will accept us for who we are. Who won’t ask too many questions about where we came from.”

She reached over and ran her hand gently down the length of Warren’s battered and glinting wings, and he was almost bitter about the fact that he could hardly feel her touch. “No more cage fighting. No more brutalizing our own to survive. No more hoping to be chosen for a beating just so you can be sure about your meals or your winnings or your safety.” She leant down close so she could whisper in his ear. “No more _dreaming_ about a place where you are free from shackles and surrounded by friends and family. This place Warren… it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Everything I’ve ever wanted. A home. A family. A _meaning_. I know that if you give it a chance, just a chance at least, that you’ll find something there that you’ve always wanted too.”

Warren tiled his face to look her in the eyes, but her face was so open and hopeful, that he had no choice but to close his eyes in resignation. “I’ll think about it.” The comment was worth it just to see the beaming grin on Ororo’s face, full of glee and excitement and pride.

Bending down, Ororo placed a kiss on Warren’s temple. She was about to say something else when a nurse in pink scrubs and a clipboard entered and informed them with a sympathetic wince that visiting hours were over before ducking back through the curtain and leaving them alone. “I guess I have to go,” Ororo muttered as she stood. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow? I can stay away if you’d like me to.”

Biting his lip, Warren thought in silence for a moment before he shook his head. “Not tomorrow. I think I want to be alone… with this.” He waved his hand bitterly at his situation. “But the next day?”

“Sure,” Ororo smiled and she tucked Warren tighter into the bed and ran a hand down the edge of his razor-sharp wings before walking to the curtain and following the nurse out of the room, leaving Warren alone in the hospital room.

A month passed with the constant visiting of Ororo and the irritatingly endless check-ups from nurses and doctors and physios who took care of his wings but didn’t actually seem to care about what happened to him, and it got to the point where he would look out the window and plot a plan regarding smashing glass and flying away from the terrible place.

His feathers started to fall out one by one, not in a shedding sort of way, but where the real white feathers grew back, the metal shell that once covered them and made them titanium strong and sharp as daggers dropped off, discarded. There was a small collection of metal husks on his bedside table that had begun to pile up as time went by.

One day, while Warren was twirling one of his old feathers in his fingers in an attempt to stave off boredom, he heard a voice in his head, kind and wise, and resisted jumping up in surprise. _Hello Mr Worthington, my name is Charles Xavier. It has come to my attention from an acquaintance of yours that you have been considering attending our school, at least for sanctuary._ Warren didn’t reply, sensing that the speaker could already know what he was thinking. _If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to send one of our students to come and collect you immediately so you could recover around those of your own kind. I feel as though you would prefer that_ _to being in a hospital._

The presence left his mind and Warren felt like the decision had been made regardless of what he wanted, but his final thought before the student arrived was _please not Kurt, please be anyone but Kurt._

There was a _bamf_! sound from Warren’s left and standing there, sheepishly twirling his tail around his body, was Kurt. Warren resisted a sigh. “Uh, hello.” Kurt said, reaching out a hand. “I’m taking you back to the institute. Can I…” He hesitated and Warren felt a twinge of guilt at how nervous Kurt seemed to be around him. “May I touch you? Will you hurt me?”

In answer, Warren held his arm out to give Kurt wordless permission and a weary yet genuine smile grew on Kurt’s face. He reached out and grabbed Warren’s arm and in a burst of smoke and a moment of weightless darkness, they were somewhere completely different, with a comfortable bed and a room that seemed to be a dorm. Beside his bed was already a man in a wheelchair- the same man they had captured all that long ago- who smiled kindly at Warren before turning to Kurt. “Thank you for that, Kurt. If you wouldn’t mind, me and Mr Worthington have much to speak about.”

Kurt nodded at the professor and smiled sheepishly at Warren before he disappeared and Warren was left alone with the older man.

Ororo and Kurt seemed to be the most regular visitors to his bedside while he was healing, giving him much-needed conversation and providing gifts of books and movies that Warren hadn’t even known he’d missed. Kurt seemed to be hesitant to get too close to Warren, but he came without fault. Once, when Ororo and Kurt passed paths in an instant before Kurt disappeared again, waving at Ororo, she turned to Warren with a smirk. “What?” he snapped once she sat down.

“He’s not all bad, is he?” She asked knowingly. “I think you should get to know him, once you’re up and about again.”

“He’s crazy,” Warren objected. “Who the hell would want to be this nice to a guy who not only tried to kill him but almost helped destroy the world?”

Ororo shrugged. “He’s nice to everyone. I don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. He’s just… pure.” She smiled. “He goes to church whenever he can and he’s just a very forgiving person.” Leaning forward, she placed a hand on Warren’s and smiled brightly. “You should talk to him. See what he’s like for yourself. Be friends with him if you want. But I think it’ll be good for both of you.”

“No,” Warren said immediately.

Clasping her hands under her chin, Ororo pouted. “Please? For me.”

Sighing heavily through his nose, Warren closed his eyes. “Fine.” He agreed reluctantly and he could see Ororo’s winning smirk through his closed eyelids.


	2. The get to know

His opportunity came not long after, with Peter zipping around Warren’s room decorating and pinning up posters wherever Warren pointed, trying to be helpful and friendly to the new guy (though Warren suspected that he’s been ordered by the Professor to complete the task) when Jean walked into the room, looking frazzled. “Pete, it’s Kurt- oh, hi Warren.”

“Hi,” Warren sat up a little straighter against the pillows. “What’s wrong with Kurt?”

“Oh, he’s like a cat.” Peter placed the posters down on the bedside table. “He’s curious and tends to wander, but he doesn’t realize that he’s wandered away from the school until we go find him. I’ll go see where he is.”

“Actually-“ With a grunt, Warren stood, and flexed out his wings. His real feathers were beginning to grow in from his spine and shoulder blades, and he forgot how much he had missed the sensation. “I can go get him.”

Jean frowned. “Are you sure. You’re wings-“

“Will be fine.” Warren insisted. “If they give out when I find Kurt, he’ll teleport me back and I’ll go straight back to bed. Besides- it’ll give me a chance to get a lay of the land.” Peter and Jean shrugged and moved out of his way so Warren could stand and make his way on legs unused to walking fair distances yet to an open window, where he leapt out and spread his wings before he could hit the floor, the updraft sending him spiralling into the air.

He has never felt as free as he did when he was in the air, and he took a moment to admire the sprawling green tree-tops before trying to focus on fining Kurt, and eventually spotted a flash of blue in the orchard, and he flew down to meet him. He landed a little way away and observed Kurt as he danced about and stared at all the different flowers in awe, and Warren couldn’t help but smile a little. “Your friends are looking for you.” He said abruptly, and Kurt spun around with a gasp. “You’ve given them quite a scare.”

Kurt looked up and around, as if just now realizing where he was. “Oh. I uh… I didn’t- I did it again. I’m… sorry.” He frowned. “Why did you come after me? Are you going to get in trouble?” His eyes winded. “Are you here to hurt me?”

Snorting, Warren plucked a flower from a nearby bush and twirled it around in his fingers as he slowly approached Kurt. “Nah man. I only attacked you in the cage because I had to and at the temple because… I was following orders.” The excuse felt weak, even to himself, so he sticks out his hand. “I’m Warren. Angel.”

Wearily, Kurt reached out towards his hand and, reassured that Warren wasn’t going to hurt him, grabbed his hand firmly. “Kurt. I’m… sometimes called Nightcrawler.”

“That’s an odd codename.” Warren dropped his hand his side. “At least Angel makes sense, with the wings and all. Why do they call you Nightcrawler? You don’t look like a spider to me.”

Kurt grinned at that and showed Warren his fangs. “In the circus, I was an acrobat called the Amazing Nightcrawler. That is what they put on all my posters and what they called me when I was brought out. I use that as my codename now, to not forget my roots or where I came from but also to forge a new identity for the name.”

Humming, Warren spread his wings slightly, almost wincing at the terrible sound of metal against metal, no matter how smooth the glide was. “That’s quite a story. I’ve just got big white wings. Had, anyway.” He frowned, then shrugged. “Oh well. Do you wanna get back? I don’t want Xavier to get mad at me just for coming to find you.”

Nodding, Kurt reached his arm out and Warren took his hand before they both teleported back to the Mansion.


	3. Admiring and an apology

There was a certain joy Warren felt when looking in the mirror at his wings- they were undoubtedly _his_ , regardless of how desperately his father wanted them hidden and taken away. They were apart of Warren, body and soul, and even though Apocalypse coated and replaced them with metal ones, they would always be the most precious parts of Warren’s being.

Alone in his bathroom, he gripped the basin as he bent his head at an odd and uncomfortable angle to get a glimpse of the new white feathers growing in thick and strong by his shoulder blades. He had forgotten how much he missed them, but now that they were back and tickling his skin like they never left, Warren felt a sudden burst of confidence and pride.

They were growing back. For better or for worse, when his wings had been reduced to nubs the feathers and bones always grew back to their original glory. His wingspan had gotten wider over the years and he knew that if he stood in the centre of the room and opened his wings as far as they could go, he would completely fill the room with his white plumage, the talons on the tips of his wings tapping against the walls.  
  
Warren knew his wings weren't as big as they could be or should be, especially with the metal replacements obscuring their previous beauty, but he was sure that they absolutely would be soon. The fact that they could grow back despite the new metal was a miracle in itself.  
  
There was a knock on his bedroom door, quick and nervous and Warren called them in without moving from his spot in the bathroom. There was a burst of darkness and suddenly Kurt was standing awkwardly beside Warren, who greeted his small wave with a smile.   
  
In the moment of tension that came from the silence after Kurt appeared, both men expecting the other to start a conversation, Warren flexed his wings and the metal that once ran so smoothly somewhat grated and scraped against each intricate feathers, something he was still getting used to after almost dying under the rubble in Egypt and having his wings almost irreparably destroyed. Startled at the sudden sound, Kurt looked to Warrens wings with relief at being given a topic of conversation and the same look of awe he got whenever he saw them. "Your wings are still amazing." Kurt marvelled quietly and Warren felt a sudden yet silent flare of pride. "It is a blessing."  
  
Honestly, Warren definitely didn’t feel or look amazing, but he knew his wings were the most amazing part of him, whether they're made of metal or feathers or broken pieces of bone. And he was very aware of how fascinated Kurt was by his wings. The same fascination Warren held with Kurt’s tail. "They're as good as the person wearing them, huh?" he teased.  
  
Snorting softly, Kurt slowly reached a hand out before hesitating and watching Warren's face with worry. "C-can I....touch them?"  
  
Warren didn't know why he hesitated. He normally likes people running their fingers through the soft feathers, and it's a feeling he's missed since the feathers turned to blades and sliced deep cuts into anyone who got too friendly. Maybe it was because Warren was remembering the blue demon boy in circus garb who had been thrown into the cage and ruined his wings. He wasn't too sure. Eventually, he nodded, and despite having only three thick, clawed digits on his hand and never having done it before- at least not to anything this big- Kurt was surprisingly gentle. “They’re… so soft.” Kurt smiled from ear to ear. “And fluffy. Much different from the metal feathers. I prefer these much more than the other ones.”

“So do I,” Warren had to laugh and he watched Kurt’s reflection in the mirror, tentatively running the back of his hand down the white feathers with wide eyes and a smile. “I’m not all bad, huh?”

“No, not all bad.” Kurt dropped his hand back down to his side, almost ashamed, and looked away from Warren’s confused glance. “The professor wanted to see you. He sent me to collect you but if you’d rather walk I can always leave you alone…” he ducked his head and made his way towards the door. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey- whoa, hold up.” Warren reached out and gripped Kurt by the shoulder before he could flee. “It’s fine man. If you’re worried about touching my feathers, believe me, you wouldn’t have your hands if I didn’t want you to do it.”

Kurt worried at his bottom lip, twirling his tail anxiously between his hands. “Oh,” he muttered, eyes on the ground. “So you’re not going to hurt me?”

Snorting, Warren released his tight hold on Kurt’s shoulder and gave it a friendly pat. “No Kurt, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Suddenly, Kurt let out a heart-wrenching sob once and backed up against the wall, his hands covering his mouth in a failed attempt to hold back his tears. “I’m so sorry,” Kurt sniffled. “I’m so sorry that I ruined your wings.” Before Warren could move, Kurt was gone in a puff of smoke and Warren was left there wondering how everything changed so fast.


	4. Papa comes knocking

Warren should have known that sooner or later word of his disappearance and re-appearance would get out, and he should have expected his father to find out and act the way he normally did- over the top and with as much force as possible.

He and a few of the other kids were lounging in the library with Professor Xavier, who had finally given Warren permission to leave his room, when the sounds of helicopter blades flew overhead. The glaring light from flashlights shone into the windows and some of the younger kids screamed and hid behind bookshelves. Warren, Ororo and Professor X joined Scott at the window and Warren choked on his spit.

A wave of heavily armed men stood on the gardens at the front of the school, trampling the carefully planted flowers and the bright green grass under their heavy combat boots and at the front of the array was his father, a megaphone clutched in his hand and his eyes scanning the windows of the school as if he had x-ray vision and could see Warren through the brickwork. “Oh no…” Warren breathed and the others turned to look at him in confusion.

“Son!” Mr Worthington called and inside the school, Warren tensed up at the voice he knew all too well- the one his father used when he was angry but trying to mask it by being kind. “I know you’re in there, the hospital told us where you had been transported. Come out so I can take you home. You have no home here in this… mutant school. When we get you home we can finally work on getting rid of those horrid wings for good.”

Seething, Warren slunk down the window just as Peter rushed into the room in a rush of flying paper and wobbling bookshelves. “Alright, does anyone want to tell me why the hell we have a whole heap of people with guns standing outside the school?”

“Can you get rid of them?” Scott asked from where he was crouched beside the Professor at the window. Ororo was looking down at Warren with a look he couldn’t really figure out, so he averted his gaze.

Peter smirked and re-adjusted his goggles over his eyes, but Warren raised his hand before he could take off. “Don’t. He’s here for me. If I go out there with him he’ll leave the rest of the school alone.”

The Professor looked at him almost as strangely as Ororo was, but this time, Warren met his gaze with a challenge in his eyes. “You are willing to risk your freedom for the school? For people, you at one point tried to kill?”

Warren stood, trying not to roll his eyes. “Yeah, I know. How strange is it? Sometimes assholes can be kind as well.”

Before he could move more than a few steps, Ororo placed her hand on his shoulder and he stopped. He turned to look at her and her eyes were wide and worried. “He says he wants to take your wings.”

“I know,” Warren shrugged her off. “Why do you think I was fighting in cages in Germany?” Ploughing forward, Warren tried to ignore the looks of the rest of the mutants with his hands in his pockets, but he was interrupted by a burst of purple smoke and a cry of surprise and when he turned he saw Kurt holding one child in his arms and another hanging on to his tail.

Kurt placed the child on the floor and both of them ran off towards the older students hiding in the bookcases with similar cries of fear. Kurt turned to the others, eyes wide and tail flicking frantically across the ground. “What’s going on?” He said, voice hissing with panic. “W-what are the people outside for? Why do they have guns?”

Suddenly nervous, Warren ran a hand through his hair and placed a hand on Kurt’s tense shoulder. “They’re, uh, they’re here for me.” Warren made to shove past him but Kurt’s tail had come up and wrapped around Warren’s wrist. “Come on, man, it’s alright. I’ll be fine.”

“If you go, they’ll take you away,” Kurt’s eyes were wild and fearful. “And they’ll hurt you.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that,” Warren snapped, yanking his arm away from Kurt’s tail and quickly hurried towards the door before anyone else could try to stop him. When Warren reached the large double doors that lead out of the school, he took a slow, deep breath and ruffled his wings, cringing at the way the steel rubbed against each other before he shouldered them open and marched out onto the courtyard. All the torches turned to him and the light glinted dangerously off his wings. When he met his father in the middle, he crossed his arms against his chest. “What do you want old man?”

Mr Worthington balked at the size and new material of Warren’s wings and took a small step back. “Oh god, it’s gotten worse.”

Scowling, Warren shuffled where he stood. His ill-fitting leather jacket creaked with how tensely he was holding himself. “What do you want? Tell me and leave so I can go back inside and away from _you_.”

“We’re going home,” Mr Worthington reached an arm out and Warren moved out of the way, and his father's outstretched arm fell awkwardly to his side and he fisted it in his suit pants. “You shouldn’t be here with these… _mutants_ ,” he spat it like a curse. “We can finally take care of those… wings, it may be a little difficult now that they’re not just flesh and blood, but when we get you home we can give you the best care and can take charge of it, alright? Come on, let’s go home.”

Warren took a step back and slapped his father’s hand away when he tried to put it on his shoulder again. The men behind him aimed their guns at him as if Warren was a danger and his wings ruffled as much as they were able in distress. “Nah, I’m good thanks. I like it here; I think I’m gonna stay.”

Mr Worthington’s face shifted and his fake shield of kindness rippled. “What do you mean? Warren, you can’t stay here with these… people. You’re not like them. You shouldn’t be here in this… this prison for _mutants_.”

“This isn’t a prison, it’s a school,” Warren snapped shifting back. His wings expanded at his side almost against his will and some of the armed men standing behind his father took a tentative step back, hands tightening on their weapons.  It gave him a small amount of satisfaction with the knowledge that he scared them, just a little bit. “And I am a mutant. I have and always will be, no matter how hard you try and change that.”

Something seemed to shatter on Mr Worthington’s face, his cool-calm exterior dropping and for the first time, Warren saw the face he had expected to see- pure fury and disgust. He tried to take another step back, but this time Mr Worthington was faster and by the time Warren even knew what was going on, his father’s grip on his arm was tight and his wings rippled and-

And someone appeared between Warren and his father and pushed them apart, forcing Warren to stumble back onto the grass and for his father to gasp as if he’d just seen the devil. When Warren blinked, he saw the deep-blue skin of someone mostly hidden in the darkness, a tail swishing almost silently through blades of grass and a smile so large Warren could pick out every pointed tooth and fang. “Kurt?”

“Hello,” Kurt grinned at Mr Worthington, taking a step forward to make up for the space that the older man tried to make between them by shuffling backwards. “You are pointing your guns at our home, and we are trying to sleep. I think you should leave now. Goodbye.”

“Who are you to tell me what to do, _devil_?” Mr Worthington spat, regaining his composure and for some reason, Warren felt his fists clench at his sides in pure fury but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

Kurt somehow smiled even wider and tilted his head to the side almost comically, the pointed tip of his tail trailing up and waving over his shoulder at the men like a third hand. “I am Nightcrawler,” he hissed before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Warren wasn’t really sure what happened next. There was too much smoke and too much screaming for him to make sense of it, but he saw tails around necks and taloned feet colliding with faces and at some point he caught sight of Kurt swinging between branches on one of the trees like it was something he had been born and bred to do, but just as Warren was getting ready to join into the fight, Kurt was beside him, wearing a wicked and triumphant smile on his face, and they were back inside the library in a burst of blue.

From the window, Warren watched the remainder of the men scatter and run towards their black armoured cars parked on the outskirts of the school grounds and saw his father huddled among the centre of them. Laughing, Warren clapped Kurt on the back, who pitched forward slightly at the unexpected affection. “Hey kid, I guess you’re not all that bad after all.”


	5. Eagle eyed Scott

Warren wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the kitchen when he went down there late at night- early morning? - but Scott was there, sipping a glass of orange juice that could have possibly been expired and reading the ingredients on the side of a colourful box of cereal. Warren tried to get in and out as quickly as possible, but the edge of his wings clipped the counter and scraped loudly against the polished linoleum and he cringed at the sound. Scott turned to him but Warren just ignored him as he went digging through the fridge. “Hey, looking good.”

“What?” Warren snapped, annoyed that Scott obviously wasn’t aware of the early morning/ late night talking rules.

Scott waved his glass at him and the orange juice sloshed dangerously close to the edge. “Your feathers. More of the metal is starting to fall out- the actual, you know, white ones are coming in. Look’s good, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Warren hadn’t thought about his wings in a little while, especially because of all the different ways he had to contort his body to see them, and the last person he had expected to notice or appreciate them was _Scott._ “Uh, thanks, I guess.”

Settling back against the counter, Scott eyed the cereal box like it had personally offended him and placed it back in the shelf where it belonged. “No problem,” he said before they settled into a semi-comfortable silence.

Really, Warren would have been happy to get his glass of water and leave Scott behind in the kitchen, but Ororo had been bugging him to make new friends that weren’t just her, so maybe Scott was a good start. “What’s it like?” He asked abruptly. “Wearing those funky glasses on your face all the time?”

Shrugging, Scott smiled, but there was something sad in it. It made something twist unexpectedly in Warren’s gut. “It’s better than wearing bandages,” he nodded his chin at Warren, who was now carefully leaning against the closed fridge door. “What about you? Do you like metal wings or normal wings more?”

A sharp sting of pain went through Warren for a moment and his wings fluttered, making a terrible clanging sound like keys jangling around in someone’s pocket. “I don’t think anyone would want these things,” he ran a finger down the edge of one of the feathers and a thin line of blood sprouted from his finger, but he could hardly feel it. He knew he’s had worse before, in the cages and even when his father trying to cut them off when he was just a child. “But you know, I’ve had to make do. But I tell you, I would do anything to get them to grow back faster.”

Scott hummed considerably over his gross orange juice and narrowed his eyes at one of Warren’s wings, reflecting the fluorescent light from above them. Warren shifted uncomfortably. “Kurt said he ruined your wings,” he said and Warren flinched. “In the cage matches. Every time he talks about it, he feels really bad about it. He told me that he didn’t think you’d ever be able to fly again. I guess getting these was sort of a blessing, even though you hate them, huh?”

“I guess so,” Warren sipped at his water. “I don’t blame him for that, though. It was either us fight or both of us be killed, so he was just doing what I told him to. I suppose that’s why I was so glad to have been given these things-” he flicked at the metal blades. “- but that wore off quickly when I realized what they did and what he wanted me to do with them.”

“You didn’t want them? They were forced on you?” Scott asked, incredulously. Warren shook his head and the room delved into silence. After a few moments, Scott broke it again. “Kurt’s a good kid, you know.”

Warren looked at him like he had just spoken another language. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s a little absentminded sometimes, and maybe he gets distracted by the little things like flowers or birds, but he’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.” The smile on Scott’s face now was nothing close to the sad one he wore before. “He gets picked on a lot, because of how he looks, you know? Kids call him the devil and stuff and you can tell it upsets him but he pretends it doesn’t. He’s a performer, so he’s always trying to make people happy. He’s skittish and uses his teleport to escape situations he doesn’t want to be in, but he doesn’t like seeing people he likes getting hurt, so he’ll often put his life on the line to help them. Believe me- I know firsthand.” He chuckled.

Setting his now-empty glass down on the counter, Warren looked at Scott with a raised eyebrow. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Scott snorted. “Because he wants to be your friend. I can see it. And maybe you don’t have the same feelings towards him, but I’ve seen how close you’ve gotten recently, and I thought maybe you should know a little about him before you decide how you feel. If you want my opinion, Kurt needs more friends, and if you want someone to watch your back, Kurt’s the one you want.”

Placing his glass upside-down in the sink, Scott passed Warren and clapped him on the shoulder. Normally, Warren would have recoiled or retaliated at the contact, but he was still thinking about Scott had said. “See you in the morning, bud.”


	6. The practice of gift giving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHONES WERE BIG AND CHUNKY IN 1983 GUYS AND THE IDEA WAS SO CUTE TO ME I INCLUDED IT BUT PLEASE DONT YELL AT ME IF THOSE PHONES DIDN'T BREAK EASILY

Usually, Warren wasn’t the kind of guy to stick his nose in the business of others or to make sure he knew their every whereabouts, but Kurt had been gone for quite a while and had been keeping his distance from Warren for even longer.

He had brought it up with Jean one day while they were playing cards at the kitchen table while other students rushed about them. “I’m not sure,” Jean had replied. “I haven’t noticed him acting any stranger than normal. He might be going through a phase. I’ll ask him about it but I suggest you just let him get it out of his system.”

So Warren, despite it not really being his strong suit, waited as patiently as he could manage. In that time, he steadily noticed Kurt getting more and more distant and avoiding him more than normal until Warren just decided to forget Jean's advice and approached Kurt with more anger and betrayal then he was expecting.

Cornering Kurt at the end of the hall, Warren hadn’t even managed to utter a word, wings bristling and fists clenching and unclenching at his sides against his will, when suddenly a large and crudely wrapped package was shoved in his face by eager, blue, three-fingered hands, and Warren took it, not really knowing what else to do.

“I uh…” Warren was at a loss for words and could only glance down at the package and turn it over slowly in his hands. “What the hell is this?”

“Open it!” Kurt squealed in excitement and Warren glanced around the hall to make sure that they were alone. “Open! Open!”

Wearily, Warren looked at the gift again. Too much sticky-tape was covering it in every direction, and the wrapping paper was a strangely fluorescent pink with stripes and sparkles and at some places, it looked like more paper had been added to repair a rip in the wrapping. At Kurt’s eager and open face, Warren finally decided to stop stalling, and tediously being trying to pry the sticky-tape away from the paper to unwrap it. Unsurprisingly, Kurt waited patiently through the process.

When Warren finally peeled away the many layers of bright paper, he felt like he was going to collapse to the ground.

He held a brand new leather jacket, the tag still on but the price scratched off, with patches on the sleeves and studs on the collar and some religious logo on the back, and when Warren turned it around to see what it said, he saw holes slit in the shoulders that were the perfect size for his wings. The big, red and black logo seemed to depict a grotesque figure with broken, burning wings with a serpent around its neck rising from a firing pit towards the blinding light above him. Warren felt his heart catch in his throat. On the pile was also a deep coloured bandanna with a couple of acrylic pins that looked like Kurt had picked them out himself and some badass looking jewellery that looked as though they would fit Warren perfectly.

Gaping at the gifts in his hand, Warren glanced between them and Kurt, who was bouncing up and down, his tail waving rapidly behind him. “Do you like them?”

At a loss for words, Warren just said the first thing that came to his head. “ _This_ is why you’ve been avoiding me all this time?”

Shrugging, Kurt clasped his hands behind his back and wrung his fingers together, his tail twisting itself into knots. “ _Ja_. I wanted it to be a surprise. Was it… a surprise?”

“Yeah,” Warren laughed, gently cradling the bandanna in his hands and running his fingers over the intricate and detailed pins. “This is _awesome_. When did you have the time to do this? Where did you get the money?” he paused, a sudden realization hitting him in the face like a tonne of bricks, and he frowned down at Kurt with a furrowed brow. “Wait- you hate going to the mall without other people with you.” He remembered that much- remembered how desperate he had been to drag Scott or Jean or that brightly-coloured girl along with him, even for a few hours.

Beaming, Kurt rocked back and forth on his heels, and his smile was so large that Warren could see his fangs. “The Professor gave me some money and sent Peter with me. We had to go back a couple of times- I wasn’t sure that phones would be so big, or so fragile.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “Peter yelled at me, but he promised we could go back again to get you something less breakable.” He waved a hand at the jacket. “Peter said he took a look at your sizes when you were having a bath- I hope they fit.”

Warren was so shocked that he didn’t even have the energy to be offended at the invasion of his privacy by one annoying speedster, and he had no choice but to gape at the thin blue boy before him. “You brought me a _phone?”_

It must have been the way he said it or the tone in his voice, but Kurt recoiled slightly his bright grin wavered. “I uh, I thought that since I didn’t think you had one when we met, and that if you did it was probably destroyed in the plane crash, I thought it might… help you? I’m sorry, I just thought-”

If he was the touchy-feely type or if he had any sort of urge to let go of his death grip on the gifts, Warren would have given Kurt a hug. “No, no, don’t apologise. This is great. Although… I might have to wait a little while before I wear the jacket. I don’t want to shred it.”

“Oh,” Kurt frowned, slinking back. “Oh yeah, right.” He ran a hand through his hair and took a step back into the darkness. “It doesn’t matter; it’ll look good anyway. The boots are in your room- bye!” And then he was gone as suddenly he appeared in a sulphuric burst of blue smoke.

For a moment, Warren could do nothing but stand there alone in the hallway, shocked, looking between the spot Kurt once was and the parcel in his hands before Kurt’s final words shot through Warren’s mind like a lightning bolt. “Boots?” He screeched, before tucking his surprising gift under his arm and sprinted towards his bedroom.

(There was a set of boots by the door, still wrapped in the same ostentatious paper, sticky tape coating the outside like another reflective, impenetrable layer, and when Warren ripped away the paper he was met by a pair of finely tailored steel-capped boots with patches of rainbow flames on the sides and dark black laces. When Warren slipped them on his feet with shaking hands, they fit him perfectly.)

Barging into the Professors office the next day, his feet clad in new boots and his hands adorned with shiny new rings and a bandanna wrapped around his head, Professor X looked at him appraisingly, hands steepled under his chin as though he was expecting him. “Ah, I see that Kurt finally decided to give you his gift. It looks quite good on you if I say so myself. It’s a shame that your wings aren’t fluffy enough to fit into that jacket. I told him you weren’t ready but he was unwavering in his quest.”

“You _knew_?” Warren floundered, the ire leaving his body as he involuntarily took a step back. “Here I am asking you why you didn't stop Kurt from planning something like that, but you knew?”

“Of course I knew.” the Professor scoffed, wheeling his chair around the back of his desk and closing the open space between him and Warren. “I provided him with the funds to do so. You don’t think he got the money on his own, do you? Would you prefer that he return all the items?” Before he could utter a response, the Professor tilted his head and a small smile curled up on the corner of his mouth. “Or, is there another reason you have come to see me?”

 _Stupid mind reader,_ Warren thought, hoping that the Professor would hear it. _Get out of my head_. Apparently, he did because the Professor brought his hands up in surrender and lowed them to his lap, letting Warren speak for himself. Reluctantly, Warren took a deep breath and tried not to shuffle his feet and twist his hands like his father taught him. “I know you don’t want me to leave the grounds yet, for trust or whatever bullshit you’re going to tell me, but I was wondering if you would uh… if you’d give me permission to go into town to return the favour.” At no reaction from the Professor, Warren amended, “With supervision if that would make you feel better?”

After a long moment of scrutiny, Professor X leant back against his chair and looked at Warren with narrowed eyes. Warren lifted his chin. “Fine,” he said eventually. “You may go. Funds will be provided for you if you shall need it and please, for the love of all things holy, don’t hurt anyone. This school doesn’t need any more attention or eyes on it than it currently has. Peter will go with you.”

“Uh,” Warren rubbed the back of his neck. “I was thinking someone more like… Scott?”

“Scott?” Even the Professor sounded surprised. “Why him? I didn’t think the two of you got along all that well, and Peter went with Kurt during his first trip.”

“Because I’m less likely to punch Scott in the face if he pisses me off,” Warren answered honestly and he felt a small, selfish flicker of pride at the way the Professor back peddled.

Nodding, the Professor waved his hand towards the door. “Ah, right. Understood. Go- take as much time as you need but be back before dinner. Maybe if this goes well, you might be granted some more freedom in the future.”

As they exited the mall hours later, bags in each hand and the sky above them slowly darkening, Scott turned to Warren and asked the question that had obviously been on his lips for a while. “You didn’t really ask me to come because you like me more than Peter, did you?”

“No,” Warren answered honestly. “No, I thought it was because you knew Kurt the best. But for what it’s worth- I do like you better than Peter, but that’s not why I chose you over him today."

Scott’s visor glinted in the overhead streetlights as he nodded. “Oh, sure.” He said it like it meant nothing, but Warren could see the shy smile on his lips that he was trying to hide in the darkness, and he let him believe that he had gotten away with it.

Later, much later, the sound of Kurt’s excitement echoed through the halls of the Mansion as he unwrapped his gifts. Warren hadn’t been hugged like that in a long, long time. And damn it, it felt _good_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, the description of the wrapping paper was perfect in my head because that's how I wrap presents, so it just fit, especially for three-fingered, clawed Kurt.
> 
> Also, the leather jacket sounded cool in my head, but it might just be a bullshit thing that sounds like crap. I thought it fit Warren more than biker jackets and the other gang stuff that I found on Google.


	7. Dinner date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a long one but I got so carried away I couldn't stop once I got going. I've been trying to come up with a chapter for this fic for a long while and when I finally came up with this, I scrapped the crap I was writing and did this instead. I hope you like it x (I'm really proud of it)
> 
> Oh, in case you were wondering, in this fic, Kurt is 18 and Warren is 21

After a while, it had occurred to Warren that he knew close to nothing about his new friend Kurt, despite them having gotten very close in the past through months. He didn’t know Kurt’s history or his past, he didn’t know his parents or any family he had before, didn’t know the first thing about him.

And that bothered Warren.

He and Scott were lying on their backs on the floor of the empty living room. The position was uncomfortable for Warren’s wings, but it would have been worse if he had his real, feathered wings. “I need to get to know Kurt better,” he tilted his head to face Scott. “What do you suggest?”

Scott looked at him as if he had just suggested nuclear warfare. “Why the hell do you think I would know?”

“Because you’re Kurt’s best friend,” Warren said simply, “I’m sure you had to accomplish it somehow.” He raised his hand when Scott opened his mouth to reply, “And if you give me any of your “just be nice” and “be yourself” bullshit, I swear I will cut you.” Scott closed his mouth.

“Well…” Scott suggested after a while of thinking. “You could always take him out to dinner.”

“Dinner? What do I look like, some kind of pansy?”

Scott just shrugged. “Kurt, uh… he doesn’t really get out much.”

Which Warren could understand. Kurt was blue for gods sakes, with a tail and fangs and half as many fingers and toes as normal people. He could walk around just as much as Warren could, but people thought of him as an angel sent from heaven, not a devil straight from hell. “Right. Uh… where do you suggest?”

“I don’t _have_ any suggestions,” Scott snorted, “I don’t leave much either, in case you hadn’t noticed. There might be a mutant pub somewhere, but I doubt it. You’ll just have to go hunting. Even if you do go to just a normal pub, I doubt anyone will mess with you. You’ve got _knives_ sticking out of your shoulders.”

“Right,” Warren stood. “Uh… thanks.”

After getting permission from the Professor, which took a lot more convincing than Warren would have liked, he went to find Kurt. He was leaning against Peter in his bedroom, his legs wrapped around one of the bedposts so he was mostly upside-down, his upper half resting against Peter. Kurt was reading while Peter was playing a rather fast-paced video game. “Uh, hey,” they both glanced up at him when he walked in. “Can I steal Kurt for a minute?”

Peter grunted and affirmative, too wrapped up in his video game, and Kurt untangled himself from the structure and leapt down to ground level.

Kurt beamed at him, flashing his fangs. “Yes, _mein freund_?”

“Get dressed,” Warren said, turning away and leaving out the door, forcing Kurt to hurry after him. After shouting a quick goodbye to an uninterested Peter, he closed the bedroom door behind him with his tail. “Wear your nicest clothes. Ask Jean or Ororo or your brightly coloured friend for help if you need it.”

“Jubilee?” Kurt looked so confused that Warren almost felt sorry for him, but there was no time to explain. “Why?”

Warren resisted his deep-set urge to sigh. “Because we’re going out tonight. Just you and me. Hurry up.”

He left Kurt alone in the hallway, confused and disorientated, to figure out what the hell Warren meant all on his own.

When Warren knocked on Kurt’s door later that night, he was almost surprised by what he saw. Kurt was wearing a familiar yet hideously garish red leather jacket and a large pair of thick sunglasses, despite the sun starting to set out the window. His feet were squished uncomfortably into a tight pair of new sneakers. His hair was jelled back and almost-styled into something manageable and his tail was shoved down one leg of his new dress pants.

Kurt lifted his arms to his sides and spun to give Warren a full view of his new look. “Better?”

“What- no,” Warren reached out and plucked the chunky sunglasses off of his face, inspected them for a moment, and flicked them into the room behind him. “What did the girls do to you? I thought they would have wanted to help you.”

“Girls?” Kurt frowned as Warren bent down to start untying the laces of his shoes and pull them off his feet. “No, Scott and Peter helped me.”

Warren rolled his eyes. “Well, that explains it. I told you to ask for the girls to help for a reason. They have _taste_.” He grunted with the force of trying to yank off the shoes. “When the hell did you find the time between now and when I last saw you to buy a new pair of shoes?”

“The girls were busy,” Kurt replied as he hopped from foot to foot to help Warren peel off his too-tight shoes. When they were off, he flexed his toes on the cool floor. “And I’ve had those shoes for… a long time. I just never need to wear them. Scott said I should. For tonight.”

“Yeah, well, Scott’s an idiot, and Peter’s not much better,” Warren reached around Kurt and pulled his tail out of his pants, which Kurt looked very relieved about, and ruffled his hair. It was slicked back with so much gel that Warren’s hands came away slimy and wet, but at least it looked better. More natural, less desperate. They put so much work into his hair, but in Warren’s opinion, Kurt’s hair was not the thing they had to worry about. “Right, that’ll do. Come on, we’re losing daylight. I don’t even know where we’re going yet.”

The shocked-fear on Kurt’s face was almost worth all the trouble.

Kurt started to get worried when the lights came into view, but Warren managed to coax his skittish friend towards the pub. It was a shitty looking thing, with dim lighting that Warren hoped would hide a little of what Kurt looked like, big burly men nursing beers and ugly grimaces, and half-naked women serving tables in cowboy hats and boots. Exactly Warren’s kind of place- not exactly Kurt’s.

Everyone turned to look at them as they walked in, and Warren let Kurt hide behind his wings a little as he led them towards a table in a dark corner at the back of the room. Kurt sat with his back to the crowd and Warren made sure he could see everything that was going on. A waitress eyed them and handed them menu’s before walking away. “Warren,” Kurt hissed, his tail swaying anxiously against the dirty floor. “This was… a bad idea. Maybe we should go home?”

“Don’t be silly,” Warren slid a grimy menu over to him. “Order what you’d like. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“But I’m-”

“Kurt, trust me,” Warren said, and he was surprised to realize that he meant it with every fibre of his being. “Nobody is going to lay a finger on you.”

A little reluctantly, Kurt accepted the menu and flicked through the pages, his tail coiled and wrapped tightly around the back of his chair. Warren looked around the room, acutely aware of all the eyes on them. Thankfully, Kurt’s back was to the rest of the room, so he couldn’t see the other patrons sending them dirty looks. Warren flared his wings, the metal shining under the dim lights and gliding smoothly and loudly against each other. For the first time ever, he wished that his feathers weren’t growing in, so his metal wings could have the full effect that they used to before.

They ordered, a new waitress serving them with a smile and an explanation of a gruff mutant coming through there once, ordering a strong beer and a hearty meal with nothing but a grunt and a glare, that she had taken a liking too. Warren didn’t care about some hairy, cigar-smoking, womanizing mutant he would never meet, but he was willing to indulge her as long as she was the one who kept serving them.

“So,” Warren began when their first plates of food began to arrive. “Tell me about yourself,” Kurt looked at him strangely over his meal. “You know. What were your parent’s like?”

Kurt looked down. “I don’t know. I’ve never met them. They abandoned me as a baby. I don’t even remember their faces or their names, or if they were mutants like me.”

“Oh,” Warren winced, mentally flogging himself. “Well, if it’s any consolation, my dad’s kind of an asshole as well,” That got a smile out of him. “Didn’t you grow up in a circus? What was that like?”

“It was nice,” Kurt shrugged. “I still miss them, sometimes, but out here is so much better than anything I could do in there. I love them but… they were not family. Family does not sell you to mutant fighting rings to make money. So maybe, not real family. Not like Scott and Jean and Peter and you are family.”

If Kurt noticed the slip-up, he didn’t mention it, so Warren didn’t bring it up either.  “Oh, uh…” He was starting to decide that this night wasn’t such a good idea after all. He’d wanted to get to know his friend but hadn’t learnt anything at all. He just wanted the night to be over and done with. “Hey, do you want a beer?”

Frowning, Kurt looked at him strangely. “A what?”

“A beer,” Warren rolled his eyes and waved the waitress over to order a couple mugs of beer. “You know- the alcohol. The drink?”

“Warren, I’m from Germany. I know what beer is.”

“Then why did you ask what it was?”

“I wanted to know why you were offering it to me. I’m 18. I can’t drink in America.”

Warren snorted. “Who do I look like, the Professor? You can have whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you, same as nobody is the boss of me.” He paused and looked at Kurt, glancing worriedly at the frothy glass of beer that the waitress placed on their table. “Wait, have you ever had a beer before?”

Kurt frowned. “I have my first slushy a couple of months ago,” The look on his face would have been almost comical if Warren wasn’t so shocked “What do you think?”

“You’ve never had a god damn beer? What about vodka? That’s from Germany.”

“Vodka is from Russia. And I lived in the circus then went to fight in the cage with you, so I didn't really have the time for drinking. I worked for a living, very difficult to work the trapeze drunk. Why are you surprised?”

“Oh my god,” Aghast, Warren slid the beer in front of Kurt. “I’m just upset that you didn’t tell me earlier. Holy hell man, I would have taken you to a fancier place instead of this dump. It’s a shame that your first drink is this shit.”

Sighing through his nose, Kurt stared at the frothing bubbles with a sour look as he slid the glass closer towards himself and wrapped his fingers around it. “I don’t know how any man can include heaven and hell in the same sentence but you just did it.”

“Just drink the god damn beer.”

Kurt did not drink all the beer, but he managed to finish half of it before he gave up, a little dizzy, and Warren drank the rest as well as his own. It was pretty shitty, but with their meal concluded, Warren paid the waitress and they left the bar with nothing but petty looks from the burly men who now saw Warren’s wings glinting dangerously in the direct lighting.

When they were out in the open air, Kurt took them home, and Warren held his breath.

It should have been a surprise to Warren that everyone was waiting for them, but it wasn’t, especially not the Professor, flicking through a book. When they landed in the library with a puff of sulphurous smoke, everyone started asking questions, but Jean’s voice was the loudest. “Did you have a good time, Kurt?”

Everyone, including Warren, turned to Kurt, who looked like the words were going to burst from his chest. “It was _so_ scary, there were so many people there who looked like they could hurt me and I was really afraid that they would but I think they were more scared of Warren and at first I _really_ wanted to go home but Warren didn’t let me and everyone kept staring at me and _it was the best_!”

That was the last thing anyone had expected him to say, especially Warren who had been holding his breath and whose heart had turned to lead. “It- it was?”

Beaming, Kurt turned to him with wide eyes, his tail whipping excitedly at his ankles. “Yes! Can we go again sometime? I haven’t had that much fun in so long! Not since the mall! Please?”

“O-oh,” Warren blinked, not expected that outcome. “Uh, yeah, sure thing.”

Ororo was looking at Warren with an expression he couldn’t identify, so he looked away. Jean, Scott, Peter and Jubilee were bombarding Kurt with questions of his night, which he eagerly supplied the answers for. The Professor simply smiled at Warren and nodded his head in approval, and Warren felt his cheeks flush as he glanced down to his shoes.

Was this what pride felt like? He liked it. He really liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already writing the 8th chapter, but I'm not sure when that will come out, so stay tuned! (PS, it's finally addressing something that's been bugging me for a while)


	8. Do not speak his name in vain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, this has been BUGGING ME TO NO END because they don't know anything about each other so why WOULN'T THEY JUST ASSUME??? 
> 
> Congrats, you lucky readers of this fic- you get two chapters in a week.
> 
> It's a little shorter than I wanted and not as great as I thought it would be but you know what I was trying to accomplish here. You get the gist.

Warren didn’t know why he had the undeniable urge to find Kurt- he hadn’t needed him this morning and he probably wouldn’t need him afterwards, but there was a gnawing at his bones that told him that he needed to see him and he needed to see him _now_.

He found Ororo in the garden, running her hands through the thorny rose bushes that lined the side of the footpath, leaning forward to sniff the flowers that she never got to experience long ago back in her home town. She looked up, smiling when he approached her. “Hey, uh, Ororo, have you seen Kurt? I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Oh,” Ororo frowned. “Did you check the church? The chapel? I’ve heard the others say that he goes there sometimes when he needs some alone time.”

“Why the hell would he be in a church?” Warren floundered.

Ororo shrugged. “Because it’s quiet?”

“Uh, right,” Warren said, already backing away. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

It took Warren a while to find the tiny, single building with the flimsy cross nailed to the roof. It was small and overgrown with vines and shrubbery and the rusted statue of the Virgin Mary was missing her head. When he landed, he was surprised to see that all of the stained glass windows were intact, there was a bowl filled with what he could only infer was holy water at the door and that someone had cleared a neat little path towards the open door. Inside the darkly lit room, Warren could see a figure knelt in one of the pews, deep in prayer.

He hadn’t been to church in a long time, not since his mother used to take him, kicking and screaming, to pray that God would take away the monstrosity he had placed between Warren’s shoulder blades. His mother had given up on God when the wings never so much as shed a single feather, and instead gave his father permission to get rid of them in a less… humane way.

Remembering the instinct he had when he was younger, he dipped his hand in the bowl of water and crossed his body. Not because he cared, but more out of respect for Kurt who’s tail Warren could now see swaying lazily around his knees.

Warren’s footsteps echoed loudly through the church, and he cringed as his boots scraped across the dusty wood. Hearing his footsteps, Kurt ended his prayer and stood from the kneel, sitting instead on the wooden pew. “Jean, you didn’t have to come for me. I am almost finished.”

“Jean?” Warren snorted, and Kurt turned around, startled. “I didn’t know that Jean regularly wore heavy steel-capped boots and looked so devilishly handsome. I don’t know if I should be offended or not.”

“Oh- Warren,” Kurt blinked. Warren rolled his eyes. Who else could it be? He had huge wings for god’s sake. “Come, sit. I wasn’t expecting visitors. What are you doing here?”

Grunting, Warren sat on the pew but had to manoeuvre himself so that his wings weren’t pressed up against the backrest, and Kurt copied the position. “I came to see you, because… well, I don’t know. I just had this feeling. You weren’t in school and I… I was worried.” He waved his hand around the desolate church. “Why the hell are you in a church anyway?”

Kurt frowned at him as if he had just claimed that he was the one with the angel wings and Warren himself had blue skin, fangs and a tail. “It’s Sunday?”

“Uh- right,” Warren raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to mean anything?”

Shrugging, Kurt looked towards the altar at the front of the church, where a priest would stand and prayers would be read. “I like to stay connected to my faith. It is one of the things that makes me feel… human. In touch with my baser instincts. I like to think that just because I look like a devil, I do not have to be one.” He flashed a fanged grin at Warren. “Otherwise, I would have burned up in hellfire the moment I step foot in any church.”

Warren rubbed the back of his neck, he examined Kurt’s face closely for a moment and found his eyes wandering over the delicate markings that flared across his skin. “Hey… I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now…  were you born with those markings or are they just part of your mutation?”

Frowning, Kurt turned to him.  “Markings? You mean… these?” He raised a hand and pointed a clawed finger at his face. Warren nodded. “Oh,” Kurt chuckled. “Oh, _Freund_ , they are not part of any mutation. I did them myself.”

“You- _what_?” Warren felt like his whole world was starting to collapse into tiny little pieces. “You _carved_ those into your _face_? You did it? Why the hell would you do that?”

Kurt looked at him evenly. “For my sins,” he said and Warren balked. “One for each sin I ever committed before I joined the X-Men. I have… not truly been able to add more since, because I am never alone, and I know that nobody else would understand.” He smiled and reached out towards Warren’s face. Warren trusted him, so he didn’t move away. “Just like you, and your markings.” He ran a claw gently down Warren’s face, over the tattoo on one side of his face.

“These aren’t markings,” Warren choked out. “I didn’t do them.”

“Oh,” Kurt frowned, leaning back. “I thought-”

Warren shook his head. “Apocalypse did it,” He said. “When he fixed my wings, he gave me these, and I haven’t been able to scrub them off.”

Pursing his lips, Kurt nodded and seemed to close himself off slightly, as if he had just devolved information that he regretted sharing. “Ah, right then. I suppose we are both very different, me having inflicted horror on myself, and you have had it inflicted upon you.” He tilted his head. “Shame. You always did have such a pretty face. I just assumed you wanted a change when you left the fighting ring.”

“Pretty face?” Warren gulped, confused. He needed a nap, or a drink, or a smoke, but mostly a long hard drink and Kurt was looking at him with such concern and such confusion that Warren felt like he was drowning. “Oh, uh, right, yeah. Pretty face. Uh- what sins are you atoning for, by any chance? You don’t seem like the kind of guy to do the whole sinning thing very much.”

Kurt smiled a small smile and Warren knew that he was hiding something. “Ah, don’t worry about it. It is all in the past.”

Everything seemed to hit him like a flying brick to the face at terminal velocity. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Kurt!”

Frowning, Kurt folded his hands and leant over the back of the bench in front of him, his back arched and his tail swaying lazily behind him. “Do not use the lord's name in vain,” he smiled and pointed to the broken Virgin Mary. “At least in the church, anyway.”

“Right, uh, sorry,” Warren stood hastily, wiping the dust off his pants, and turned towards the door. “I guess I’ll leave you be, you know, to your praying and worshipping and all that religious stuff.”

“Warren,” Kurt’s voice echoed almost as loudly as Warren’s footfalls. “Wait. Could you… do something for me?”

Licking his lips, Warren turned around and stood at Kurt’s pew. “Sure?”

Kurt beamed. “Could you… stand in front of the stained glass? Yes, like that. A little to the left- little more- there! Now can you-” he rose his arms to his side and made a gesture that confused Warren to no end. “Do the thing with your wings?”

Perplexed, Warren splayed his wings, and they rose outwards over his shoulders. While now, they were mostly all feathers, a feat that Warren himself was very proud of, a few pieces in the back were still coated in metal, and the sun from the window glinted off them and danced the light around the room. Kurt rose from his seat in awe and looked at Warren like he was the most wonderful thing in the world. “My mother at the circus always told me that I would never live to see an angle,” he said eventually when Warren was starting to feel like the silence was a little awkward. “I wish now I could tell her that she was wrong.”

Flustered, Warren lowered his wings to his side, the feathers bristled, and underneath all the embarrassment, he felt pride. “Uh, right. Let’s get out of here?”

Laughing, Kurt reached over and slung his arm over Warren’s shoulder, crashing the older boy to his chest. Other than the occasional handshake and the contact when teleporting, this was the closet that Warren had ever been to Kurt, and the first time Kurt had initiated the contact with him. Maybe being in a church made him feel more confident? Warren wasn’t sure. “Ah, friend, I will keep you in my prayers. Let’s go home. Today has been… an adventure.”

Warren let Kurt _bamf_ them back to the mansion, but he couldn’t help wondering which one of them was the angel and which one was the devil.


	9. Kindness is everywhere if you know where to look

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really bad with keeping up with updates for my fics but don't worry, I still love Kurt and Warren and I have no plans to finish this fic anytime soon. This goes for all my fics- if it's got chapters, and it hasn't been updated in a while? Be patient with me. I'm getting there.
> 
> And I know that it feels like there's not much of the Warren/Kurt friendship that there normally is, but I promise, the next chapters are going to be jam-packed full with it haha

When the mutants woke up that morning, none of them could have expected the crazy mess that their day would soon to become.

Warren had been entertaining some of the younger, braver kids by letting them ruffling their fingers through the fluffy parts of his newly grown feathers and flinging the few sharpened daggers at the tips of his wings at the back wall when Jean gasped and spun towards the huge double-doors that stood as the entrance to the manor. “Someone’s coming,”

Professor X had just arrived when the doors burst opened and two people ran in, a woman and a man, holding a small child in their arms. “Help! Somebody help us!”

“What happened?” Scott asked as the father put his son on the floor. The child’s skin was pale, his forehead fevered and a bright red growing stain blooming on his clothes.

“We were out camping in the woods near here, and he was attacked by a mountain lion or a cub or something. We didn’t have any reception so we tried to drive him to the closest hospital but our car broke down just outside the border,” the father said desperately as he tried to shake his son awake.

Jean was watching them closely and eventually she broke her silence, “You’re not afraid of us,” she said. “You’re not afraid that you’ve just walked into a school full of mutants.”

The man was too preoccupied with his son on the ground to speak, but the mother was standing close behind him, shaking, with her hands over her mouth. When Jean spoke, however, her hands lowered and she met her eyes with a steely expression. “No. No, we’re not,” she turned to the Professor, who was watching her curiously. “Our daughter is a mutant. We’ve tried to convince her to attend your school, but she’s been too afraid, so we haven’t pushed. We came to you for help for a reason.”

Immediately, the mood in the room changed, and the student’s attempts to help gained new vigour. “Most of us can’t take them to the hospital,” Scott said to the Professor. “We’ll attract too much-unwanted attention.”

“Hank, have you taken a substantial amount of your medication today?” The Professor asked, and from where he was crouched on the floor checking the boy's vitals, Hank nodded affirmatively. “Good. You will take them.”

“Wait, Professor, you want to drive them there?” Peter asked. “If that’s all you want to do, I could run the boy there now and then Hank could follow me up and bring them there while he’s already getting taken care of.”

“I could fly him there while Peter runs the parents,” Warren suggested. “Or the other way around, depending on how many people he can carry.”

“I can make the sky clear,” Ororo said monotone, obviously trying to lighten the mood, but it fell a little flat due to the situation.

Both the parents were watching the exchange with wide eyes, trusting their son in the care of Hank’s careful hands. “Can you care for him here?” the father asked.

Hank shook his head. “Unfortunately not. His wounds are too severe, and I don’t have all the equipment and tools I need to treat him. The hospital is the best place for him right now.”

“It would be better if they went all together,” Scott said. “So they’re not separated or anything.”

“Of course it would, but unfortunately, that may not be an option we can entertain,” the Professor said. “We could try-”

“What’s going on?”

A new voice cut through the frenzy, and everyone turned to the stairs to see Kurt stepping down them, on hand on the banister, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was still wearing his loose-fitting pyjamas.

Warren was the first to greet him, “You should know better than to sleep in by now. Everything just goes to shit when you’re not around.”

“I can see that,” Kurt said, voice still slick with sleep. “What’s happening?”

“Their son is hurt, Kurt,” Hank said, almost flippantly as he worked on the child. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to get them all to the hospital, and quickly. Any ideas?”

Kurt was suddenly awake, and he jumped down the last few steps to reach them. “I might,” he said as he knelt down beside the boy. Everyone surrounding him gave him some room as he reached out towards boy and gently smoothed his hair down. “Hello, young one,” he smiled before turning to the parents. “My name is Ni… you can call me Kurt. I look might look a little threatening, but I just want to help. And I can if you will let me.”

“Kurt, don’t,” Scott said, catching on. “That’s the worst idea you’ve _ever_ had.”

“They’ll tear you to shreds,” Jean agreed.

Warren stood frozen because while he knew how much of a bad idea this was, he also knew that there would be no talking Kurt out of it.

But Kurt just ignored them. He reached one hand out towards the worried parents and asked. “Trust me? Please?” Slowly, both the parents took his hand and Kurt made them hold on to either one of his shoulders. Then he picked up the boy and cradled him in his arms. “Get ready, this is going to feel a little weird.” He warned them.

“Kurt, don’t-!” Warren tried, but Kurt and the family were already gone in a burst of blue smoke.

They all stood there in stunned silence as they realize what had just happened. “Dear god,” the Professor mumbled to himself as they waited an agonizingly long time for Kurt to return.

Panicked, Warren counted the long seconds it took for Kurt to arrive, his heart in his throat and his fingers tingling, but when Kurt finally did come back, it was with a cut off scream and a heavy thud. Warren was down on his knees beside him before he even registered that Kurt was injured.

Sticking out of his shoulder braced by his fingers and surrounded by a steady pool of blood was a scalpel, the shiny metal stark against the dark blue of his skin and the gleam of fresh blood.

“You absolute idiot,” Hank said, panicking, as he turned his attention over to Kurt. “Why would you do that?”

“They needed help,” Kurt said, eyes closed. “What was I supposed to do? Leave them there and watch that boy succumb to his wounds? I couldn’t do it. God would never forgive me,”

“Even still,” The Professor tried, but he didn’t seem anywhere near as disappointed as Warren thought he’d be. “You should have talked it through with us before you acted.”

Kurt turned his gaze to him, and Warren knew from experience and the look on the Professor’s face that Kurt had just turned his anger like righteous fire from the depths of hell onto him. “All due respect, Professor, but you knew exactly what I was going to do the whole time.”

Professor X didn’t say anything, and Warren knew that Kurt had hit the nail on the head. Warren shook himself awake and grabbed Kurt by the elbow. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Kurt hissed as Warren helped him to his feet. “Everything was fine until I went to leave. Then another patient in one of the rooms took the tools off of his nurse’s trolley and threw a scalpel at me. I have to say, I’m a little impressed. He hit his target well enough, although I feel as though he were aiming for my head.”

Warren actually had to physically try not to laugh. “I genuinely can’t believe that even though you’ve got a knife sticking out of your shoulder, you’re still trying to make jokes.”

But Kurt wasn’t finished yet, and he shone Warren a toothy grin as he was pulled along, Hank collecting his things and hurrying along behind them. “Look, Warren, now you and I are similar. We both have knives on our person, huh?”

“Oh my god,” Warren rolled his eyes. “Come on; let’s get you to sickbay.”

The whole while that Hank was worrying over him, Kurt was insistent that he was fine, and true to his word, he was. An hour later, the scalpel was removed and his shoulder was wrapped in bandages and padding, the white very bright against his skin. “See? I told you that there was nothing to worry about.” His grin was all fangs. “The boy may have had very good aim, but he wasn’t an experienced marksman. It looked worse than it was,”

“Only you would be able to say that with a smile,” Warren laughed from his position seated beside Kurt’s bed, his arms folded over Kurt’s legs and his chin resting on them. His laughter fell away for a moment and Kurt looked at him strangely. “Why did you do it?”

Kurt shrugged like it was nothing. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re X-Men, Warren. We help everyone, even at the risk of danger.”

Shaking his head, Warren sat up and impatiently pushed his hair out of his face. “But you didn’t even think about it. You just… acted while the rest of us were trying to come up with some sort of plan. The only reason we even did it was because their daughter is a mutant but  _you_ -”

He was interrupted by Kurt’s two-fingered hand behind held up in his face. “Wait, their daughter is a mutant?” he asked. “I… I wasn’t privy to that bit. I wasn’t there yet, I don’t think.”

All Warren could do was staring at him like he was a meteor that had just crash-landed in the middle of the school. “You truly are too kind for your own good, Kurt Wagner.”

“Oh, _freund_ , all the best people are,” Kurt smiled, and Warren didn’t know what to say to that.

A few days later, there was another knock on the door, and the same man and women entered the school, looking much less harried and more well-kept, but they walked into the foyer and waited in the hallway to be greeted. They politely waited until Professor X arrived before they spoke.  “Professor, we were the family that arrived the other quite out of sorts for help with our son,” the father said. “Do you remember us?”

“I’ve no idea how I could possibly forget,” the Professor laughed. “But yes, I do remember. How is your son? Better than when we last saw him, I hope?”

“Yes, he’s doing much better,” the mother said. “We’ve left him with his aunt for now, but we’ve been told that he’ll make a full recovery in a few weeks.”

“We realized now that everything has calmed down a bit that my wife and I made quite the wrong impression and arrived at your fine school quite rudely,” the father said. “My name is Craig, and my wife here is Lisa. My son- the one whose life you saved- is Martin. My daughter is Stephanie, but you haven’t met her yet.”

Professor X smiled at them kindly at the end of their introductions and waved his hand around the school.  “Very nice to meet you. My name, formally, is Professor Charles Xavier, and welcome to my school for gifted youngsters.”

“Stephanie would love this place,” Lisa said quietly.  “She always was the more scholastic type. She likes reading, but would rather pick up a book about world history than damsels in distress.”

The Professor smiled knowingly. “There are many students like that within these walls. You should bring her some time, I would love to meet her.”

“We’d like to,” Craig said. “But she’s been a little difficult to convince. We love our daughter very much, and we just want what’s best for her, but with her mutation, she can be a little… how to put it? Challenging.”

“Understandable. Most of my students are when confronted with new abilities they can’t control or understand. I hope that you’ll be able to convince her one day,” he smiled and turned his chair to face them. “Not that I mind, but is there a reason you’ve graced my home with your presence? It’s always nice to see a friendly face, considering how rare they are, but it would be good to know, and I try not to read people’s minds if I can help it.”

“Believe it or not, this isn’t entirely a social call, but not really a business trip either,” Craig said. “We were looking for one of your students… the blue one? Kurt, I think his name was.”

“He helped us out the other day with Martin,” Lisa explained once she caught the Professors questioning look. “And his presence wasn’t so… well; some of the hospital's patients didn’t take too kindly to him. We just wanted to make sure he was alright, and to thank him for helping us, because we didn’t get to do it on the day.”

The expression that crossed the Professor’s face was one well known to his students and not to outsiders. “How kind of you,” he said with a smile. “I’ll fetch him for you right away. I’m sure he’d be very pleased to hear that everyone is alright.”

Moments later, Kurt appeared in the middle of the room mid-laugh, with Warren floundering behind him, Kurt’s tail wrapped around his ankle. “Hello,” Kurt grinned, head tilted, his disarming smile bright on his face. “How is your son? I heard he was doing better.”

Lisa smiled at him. “Yes, much better thanks to you,” she nodded to his shoulder. “I take it that kid actually hit you. You’ll be glad to know that the hospital called security and he was detained until the police arrived. We heard he was let out early this morning. How are you doing?’

Kurt’s smile wavered for a moment at the unexpected question before it came back in full swing. “Quite well, actually, no need to worry. It was barely a graze. I’m glad that your son is doing better; he’s been on my mind for a while now.”

“We just wanted to thank you, for all your help,” Craig reached a hand out to shake Kurt’s hand, but seemed to falter for a moment at Kurt’s lacking of digits, but didn’t voice his surprise. “Without you, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened. I would be more than proud for my daughter to attend this school if she were around people like you.”

Warren had never seen Kurt so flattered, and he raised his eyebrows as Kurt swept low in a bow with his hands out and his tail waving high above his head. “It has been an honour.”

In hindsight, maybe Warren was wrong- maybe kindness wouldn’t be Kurt’s downfall after all.


End file.
